


Unknown and Lost

by intelligentgravity



Series: TAG DeviantAU [2]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, F/M, M/M, Poor Life Choices, Underage Drinking, underage sexual references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 13:25:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5092412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intelligentgravity/pseuds/intelligentgravity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prequel to A Known Deviant. The events leading up to the instigation of the intervention. Gordon is making poor life decisions that draw the attention of his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unknown and Lost

This night is the _best_. Gordon raises his glass, and the crowd of beautiful people around him raise theirs too. “To being young and free!” he says, and they all cheer and chug their glasses. “Shots!” Another cheer. Another round.

He’s not sure where they are by now. They’d begun in California, he knew that much. That had been four days ago. Then Gordon had got it into his head that he wanted to go back to Kansas and show all his new friends around the state he grew up in, and of course they all said yes.

They didn’t quite get to Kansas. They’re in Colorado Springs. The bar they are in has decided to close up early with the party on the inside, so long as the famous Gordon Tracy is paying for the drinks. The owner is probably rubbing his hands together with glee at his good fortune. And it is a small fortune. Gordon doesn’t know, he’s too busy. He has his arm around a girl he’s been fairly attached to since they started this road trip. He thinks her name is Harley, but it could be because she was wearing a Harley Quinn tee-shirt and she answers to it.

This girl is a sweetheart, he thinks. He could get used to this. Virgil is always talking about the virtues of long-term monogamy. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to try it? It’s been pretty nice to have someone to snuggle up tight with on the bus they (he) hired. Plus, she laughs at basically everything he says. He knows he’s funny, but she thinks he’s a _riot_. He must be _killing_ it.

“I’m gonna go pee, stay here,” he says to her, and kisses her ear. His steps weave as he high fives people on his way out, and his vision is doing that thing where he stops recognising himself in the mirror. He squints at himself as he pisses, wondering if how he sees himself now is how other people see him. He looks a bit blurry, to be honest. His eyes are shadowed from lack of sleep, but bright from alcohol.

“Buck up, son,” he says in his best Dad voice, slapping himself on the cheek and blasting the mirror guy with a 1000-watt grin. That’ll show him.

There’s a tall guy at the bar when he passes, with a gorgeous smile and smooth dark skin. He’s an actor Gordon recognises. He’s seen him before, around and about. They might have spoken off-hand in the past. His name might be David. All he knows right now is that the guy is gorgeous, and he needs a taller drink.

The man’s dark eyes sweep him up and down, and Gordon finds himself forgetting Harley already. “Hey. Can I buy you a drink?”

“I think you already have,” David replies, raising his glass in a small toast of gratitude. “Some party you’re throwing here.” Gordon distractedly watches the way his lips pout around the rim of the glass. His movements are knowing, well aware of the flush on the young swimmer’s cheeks.

“My birthday’s coming up. You should come.”

“What?”

Gordon grins and shrugs, fumbling his thoughts. “I mean, if you like my parties. I’m having one in a week, for my birthday. I’ll be eighteen. It’ll be in my penthouse in L.A. You should… come.”

There’s a pleasant warmth between them. Gordon wonders for a second if he’s come on too needy, or if he’s misinterpreted the signs.

“I think I will come,” David replies at last, brushing his fingers over the back of Gordon’s hand. Gordon opens his mouth to reply, perhaps to draw him closer, but there’s a girl between them, a girl who had thought she’d had Gordon in her pocket until she’d glanced across the room at him.

“See you there,” Gordon replies. David gives him a small wink and walks away.

She has a wicked mouth and warm hands and she wants his attention very much. So does the bartender. He’s holding out a machine so Gordon can pay off some of the tab before he gets too drunk to remember. His thumb slips on the pad, because Harley is nibbling his earlobe, determined not to lose him.

“Declined.”

“Huh?” Gordon has to really focus his eyes. Harley has got to stop trying to wriggle her fingers inside his clothes.

“It’s declined. You got another card?”

A large bouncer has appeared out of nowhere, casually leaning on the bar near them. Gordon glances at him as he nods, fumbling in his wallet for a second card. This one is the black one, the no-limit one, the _emergency_ one. This one has “Tracy Industries” embossed in shiny silver below the number.

He’ll have the money back in the account before Dad notices. It’s just to stop the big guy eyeballing him, just because he’s so distracted and so drunk. As soon as he’s done, she drags him away, through a side door and out into the cooler night air.

He hadn’t realised how stuffy it was inside. He giggles and lurches against the wall, and she pins him, easily capturing his mouth in a wet kiss. Her thin fingers clumsily pluck at his belt.

The sound of tumbling glass on asphalt distracts him for a moment, but she’s trying to get him to look at her face while she works her hands inside his underwear. He’s too drunk for this. The faint stirrings he’d felt talking to David were doused, and there’s not much he can do about it now.

He feels a prickle on his neck that he’s being watched. Gordon bats her hands away, and looks around again, and she swears, tugging more forcefully at his jeans.

“Why’d you have to drink so fucking much? You can’t even cheat on me and let me get revenge properly?”

“Cheat? _What_?” Gordon is lost, so lost, so drunk. “Stop- stop it! Stop touching me!” She’s not exactly sober either, and he has to really push her away. Her eyes glance in the direction the sound came from, and he finally gets it. He may be plastered, but he’s been used like this before. Trying to expose him for the cameras is new, though. It’s something to share with the grandkids, if he remembers this at all.

“I can’t cheat on you if we’re not- not even _together_ ,” he slurs, his words losing cohesion as fast as his thoughts do.

“Fuck you!” she screams back, figuring she can at least milk a scene out of him. “I gave you everything!”

Gordon does a clumsy job of buttoning his jeans up, looking worriedly towards the street, searching the shadows. He’s sure there are figures there, crouching. There have been figures with cameras following him the last three days, but now, at last, he feels threatened. And when good drunk men are threatened, they have two options: fight, or flight.

His father has been on at him to get his pilot’s license anyway.

 

***

 

By the time Gordon stops running, he is utterly and thoroughly lost.

There is nobody following him. There hasn’t been anyone following him for a while, but he hasn’t been _sure_. He’d heard a bang and some scratching and it might have been a raccoon but it might have been paparazzi so he’d kept running.

He is far away from them now. He is far away from most things now. He is lost in the suburbs and everything looks the _same_. He might have tried to hide behind some bins at one stage and cut his leg falling over them, and the blood makes his ankle itch. He’s tried to order a taxi, but he doesn’t know any numbers to call. He’s been walking for over an hour, waiting for anything to feel familiar, and it just _doesn’t_.

Maybe it is time to admit defeat. Gordon stops, takes a deep breath, and pulls out his phone, drops it, picks it up, and scrolls through his contacts list.

The phone rings and rings. Just as he’s about to give up, someone picks up and answers with a deep grunt.

“Virgil… Virgil I’m lost and I don’t have any money.”

The pause is far too long before he gets a reply. “Do you have _any_ idea what time it is?”

Oh, that is _not_ Virgil. That is _very_ not Virgil. “Virgil?” he tries doubtfully, squinting at his phone screen.

“ _John_ ,” denies his brother. “How did you get this so wrong? J isn’t even remotely close to V in your contacts.”

Sure, except that he’s accidentally dialled ‘Very Busy Do Not Disturb John He’ll Get Angry’, which is next to ‘Virgil In Case of Emergency’.

Shit. Shit _shit_. “Nooooo,” he mutters, pouting at the screen.

John heaves a heavy sigh, and Gordon can just about hear him pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. “What would it take to get you to let me go back to sleep?” he asks.

“I don’t have any _money_ and I don’t know where I _am_ ,” Gordon repeats, looking around at the samey houses with their samey lawns. “I think I’m in fucking Stepford or something. Everything looks the same!”

“I’ll transfer you some money and you can call a taxi,” John replies. “How much will you need?”

Well that was a good question. “I don’t know where I am,” he says, sounding far more drunk and whiney this time around.

John swears under his breath. “Where’s the last place you remember being?”

Gordon screws up his face. “At a bar. With some friends. I thought they were my friends.”

“You’re seventeen, how did you get into—that’s not relevant. What _city_ are you in?” He’s starting to sound snappish.

“You’re not being helpful, _John_.” Gordon pulls a face at the phone. “Or should I say, _Not Virgil_. If that’s even who you _are_.” He hangs up. There’s no point continuing to talk because it’s not even Virgil anyway, and he’s getting tired anyway.

The decision is made, after some stumbling, to walk to Virgil’s place in Denver. It can’t be that far. It’s a scant centimetre on his phone map. Gordon thinks he’s figured out exactly where he is now, and it’ll be easy enough to get there. He even starts out with a jaunty step, fully prepared to make it all the way.

Fifteen minutes later, he’s crawling into someone’s flowerbed, because it has the word “bed” in it, and he’s so sleepy, and the world is spinning around him as soon as he moves from vertical. He tucks himself in, curling his arms under his head. He’s just going to pause for a moment to regain some energy, and then he’ll totally get up and keep going.

_Totally_.

Next thing he knows, the sun is coming up and there’s a police officer shaking him awake. A small crowd of suburban onlookers are standing back, watching in their fluffy robes and slippers. Joggers have paused their morning routines to take quick snaps of him being helped to his feet, pausing while he is sick into someone’s hydrangeas, and guided firmly into the back of the waiting cop car.

Virgil has to come get him. He’s the physically the closest, and they won’t release Gordon unaccompanied as he’s technically still a minor, so he has to miss lectures and drive an hour and a half to the station in order to bail the idiot out.

Gordon had been sleeping off his hangover in a cell, but by the time Virgil gets there, he’s sitting silently in a waiting room, being supervised by a surly female police officer. She looks up as Virgil walks in, sighs, and shoves a tablet at him.

“Sign here please.”

There’s a fish tank behind the desk, and Gordon is just watching it. The rhythmic movements of the fish swimming is calming, soothing on his sore head. He’s glad to see his brother, but facial movements are a bit too much for him right now.

Virgil’s face says he’s not particularly happy about this entire situation, but it’s better than the alternative. Gordon might have had to have faced John over it. Or Scott. Or _Dad_.

He is steered firmly out of the station and into the back of the waiting car. Gordon sits in the front passenger seat and leans his head against the window, all energy leeched out of him. He can see Virgil glancing at him as he pulls out into traffic, but he ignores it, instead focusing on the dullness in his head. He doesn’t even feel sorry for what happened. He just feels nothing at all.

“I’m taking you home, and in the morning I’m putting you on a plane back to L.A.,” Virgil says. Gordon grunts and winds down the window a little so he has a nice breeze ruffling through his hair.

He must have fallen asleep, because next time he opens his eyes, Virgil’s pulling the car to a stop. He blinks dopily, squinting at his brother. For a moment, he spies a soft look on his face, something concerned and regretful and tender. Then he sniffs, and Virgil turns his face away.

“Wher’re we?” he mumbles. He feels like his mouth is full of cotton.

Virgil offers him a bottle of water. “At my apartment. You slept the whole way. Makes a chance from your usual talking. Come on, let’s go up.”

Gordon is glad there is an elevator, because he couldn’t have managed the stairs. Virgil is decent enough to close the door gently behind them when they get in.

“So.”

There’s a long pause, and Gordon lets out a sigh and sits down on the sofa, pulling out his phone to check his balances. After a moment he lets out a pained groan and tosses it aside. Virgil edges around the sofa to snoop a look, and lets out a low whistle.

“You are _very_ overdrawn,” he says. Gordon frowns for a minute, then looks back at Virgil with wide eyes.

“Is this what regular people feel like?”

“Don’t be flippant. Have you ever even seen negative numbers in your account before?”

He has, but he doesn’t want to admit it. “Does that mean I’m poor now?”

Virgil rolls his eyes and sighs with exasperation. “ _Shut up, Gordon_.” He walks away. Gordon looks at him sullenly. “What are we going to do with you?”

“Don’t tell Dad. Dad can’t find out. Please?” Gordon feels like he should go through the motions, at least for Virgil’s sake. He does feel a faint stirring of anguish at his father discovering his indiscretions, but he’s more worried about the dull throbbing in his head.

Virgil sighs and walks to the window, his hands in his pockets. “You used the black Amex. It’s too late for that. I wouldn’t expect to get any of your allowance until it’s paid off.”

“Hmph.” Gordon grunts and turns away, Virgil’s pensive gaze boring into the back of his head.

At least he has his birthday party to look forward to. And David. Oh yes, that will make things feel better.

 

***

_EPILOGUE_

 

Jeff sighs as his sons depart. John wanders towards the window, squinting down and waiting for them to emerge from the front of the building.

“I don’t understand why he couldn’t just go to college like you did,” Jeff says, rubbing his temple lightly.

John makes a soft grunt. “He’s never been the brightest star in the sky,” he says absently. Far below, he can see the tops of Scott and Virgil’s heads disappear into a black town car, off to bring in their recalcitrant brother.

Really, getting picked up by the police had been the last straw for Jeff, but now this? Treating their father like that? Being so shitfaced that he couldn’t even see straight enough to know it was his father standing there stiffly, being ordered to provide _snacks_. His friends could see. His friends were giggling and gasping and carrying on as if it was the most hilarious thing they’d ever witnessed. It was embarrassing for the family and _humiliating_ for their father.

John tells himself that if it weren’t for Alan being followed and harassed, he’d be more forgiving, but he knows it’s not true. Gordon is an embarrassment to the family and needs to be stopped before something irreversible happens. The child is as dumb as a post if he thinks he can keep it up.

Still. He had received a brief thank-you message for the amount of money he’d transferred into his brother’s bank account. At least there some manners buried in under all the rocks in his head somewhere.

John does care. He cares deeply, but he’s angry and prideful, and while he loves his little brother, sometimes he doesn’t like him very much. Something has to be done.


End file.
